6 Ways to Find Your Ancestor's Hometown

The quest for the holy grail: your ancestor's place of birth.

You can't go back beyond your immigrant ancestor until you know where they were born. That town of birth is critical to finding documents.

I'm working on a couple who married in New York City in 1889. He was Giovanni Calleo. His naturalization papers have his exact birth date, but not his hometown. She was Cristina, and New York marriage indexes gave me her maiden name: Mastroianno. But nothing more.

I can't find Giovanni's immigration record. But he arrived in 1881. There's almost no chance his ship manifest will state his hometown. Her 1889 ship manifest has no details beyond her name and age. She arrived two weeks before her marriage. Two weeks! That makes me think they came from the same hometown. Family may have arranged the marriage and shipped her to the U.S.

Their hometown is everything. Your quest is to find your ancestor's hometown.

To go any further back, I need to know where they came from. Here are 6 different avenues to explore.

1. Ship Manifests

My first traveling ancestor was my 2nd great grandfather. He made a few trips in the 1890s.

In 1898 he went back to Italy to bring over his wife and 2 of his children. That 1898 ship manifest has the details I needed.

My great aunt said the family came from Pastene. The 1898 ship manifest lists their town as "S. Angelo." I scoured a map for a while until I figured it out. Pastene is a frazione (a hamlet) of Sant'Angelo a Cupolo. With that information, I was able to learn so much.

A well-timed ship manifest is a great way to find your ancestor's hometown.

2. Naturalization Papers

United States naturalization papers have 3 varieties. A person first filed their Declaration of Intention to become a citizen. This form may include your ancestor's:

• place and date of birth
• the exact date of their arrival
• the name of the ship.

Next came the Petition for Naturalization. This may also include your ancestor's place and date of birth.

A thorough naturalization form can give you a ton of places, dates, names, and facts you need.

Finally there is the actual naturalization. I have this document for Giovanni Calleo, but it confirms only his birth date.

I can't find Giovanni Calleo's declaration and petition. It may take a page-by-page search in the New York City court closest to where he lived.

3. Death Certificate

A close relative provides the facts on a death certificate. But what if they don't know the full names, proper spelling, and places of birth for their ancestors?

If you find a death certificate, keep in mind they may have Anglicized the names. What do you think the names might be in the original language? They may misspell the town of birth, if they include it.

4. Marriage Certificate

It's a bit of a rarity, but a marriage certificate may tell you where your immigrant ancestor was born. My ancestors' New York marriage certificates don't have a town; only a country. My grandparents' Ohio marriage license says she was born in Hornell, New York. But for Grandpa, it says only Italy.

A marriage certificate may be a long shot for finding an international place of birth. But it's a worthwhile search.

5. Find Others with the Name

Sometimes I'll search Ancestry for a last name only to see which towns the name generally comes from.

Searching for the name Mastroianno gives me a list of towns I can check. They include: Caiazzo, Caserta, Villa Santo Croce, Alvignano, Conflenti, Sezze, Benevento.

That's a lot to go on. Almost too much. Since Caiazzo came up a few times, I'll try there first.

I'll search the 1865 and 1869 birth records in these towns for Giovanni and Cristina.

6. Trace their Siblings

It's disappointing not to have found their hometowns yet. I have one ace left up my sleeve, and his name is Pasquale.

In the 1905 New York State census, Cristina's brother Pasquale Mastroianno is living with her. He's a 44-year-old married man who's been in the U.S. for 6 years. Did he plan to return to his wife and kids in Italy once he had enough money? Or was he going to bring them to America?

Pasquale's 1899 arrival should include his hometown. That'll be Cristina's hometown.

Here's what I found:

• An 1861 Italian birth record from the town of Falerna. The baby's parents are much too old to have had Cristina 8 years later. I looked anyway, and there is no record for her in that town.
• A 1900 ship manifest, hometown: Recale. While this is a good fit for Pasquale, I did not find Cristina born in Recale.
• An 1893 ship manifest, hometown: Nocera. There are 4 towns whose name begins with Nocera. I'll have to search all 4.
• An 1891 ship manifest, hometown: Palermo. He's heading to New York. It could be him.
• An 1890 ship manifest, hometown: Nicastro. My list of possible hometowns is getting awfully long.
• A 1902 ship manifest, hometown: Campochiaro. The 1905 census says he'd been in the U.S. for 6 years. This doesn't seem like a good fit.
• A 1905 ship manifest that's the Pasquale from the 1861 Italian birth record. He was going to Pittsburgh.

Lots more ship manifests, city directories, and naturalization indexes didn't fit this Pasquale.

Usually one of the first 3 methods would give me what I need. But this family is a tough one. Since I know Giovanni's birth date and Cristina's birth year, my best hope is that long list of towns.

I'll search for them in the birth records for each town in the list.

That hometown is the holy grail. If I find their birth records, I'll have their parents' names. I can search for their parents' marriages, and so on.

Don't give up on your search. Try every path until one leads you where you want to go.

And now for some déjà vu:

• Where Did Grandpa Come From?
• What to Do When Your Last Name Is So Common
• Walking in Your Ancestors' Footsteps

4 Ways to Handle Names in Your Family Tree

What's in a name? History, ancestry, culture…everything.

How do you record people's names in your family tree? Each time someone asks this question, I say it's a matter of personal preference. But, to be honest, some methods are better than others.

For a professional opinion, see Kimberly Powell's "8 Rules for Properly Recording Names in Genealogy" on ThoughtCo.

While I do not capitalize last names as Ms. Powell suggests, she does offer sound advice. I find the CAPITALIZATION to be distracting and unnecessary.

Here's my take on recording names in a family tree.

1. Maiden Names vs. Married Names

A woman's maiden name is the holy grail. You can't find her ancestors without learning her maiden name. That's why I always use a woman's maiden name. You may say, "But her married name makes it easy to see who she married." Actually, your family tree makes it easy to see who she married. And if she married 2 or more times, you're not accounting for at least one husband's last name.

This became a non-starter for me when I learned that Italian women keep their maiden name for life. The vast majority of women in my family tree lived their lives in Italy. I've told my husband that if I die first, he'd better damn well put my maiden name on my marker.

2. Given Names, Known As Names, and Nicknames

I prefer to record each person's name as it appears on their birth record, if available. A person may not "go by" their given name throughout their life. My great grandmother was born Marianna but often used her late sister's name Mariangela.

You can record multiple names for a person, but I make their given name the preferred name.

You can use a person's given name as their primary NAME fact. Add a 2nd NAME fact to record their preferred name. Add a 3rd NAME fact to record a nickname. Many of my parents' family members had nicknames like Baldy or Blondie. It's a great idea to capture those nicknames, too. You can always use a person's Notes section to explain how, where, and why people used a nickname.

No one knew my grandmother by her birth name of Maria Carmina. That's how I've recorded her in my family tree because it was a major discovery. I can record Mary as a 2nd NAME fact.

3. Spelling Changes

Speaking of Grandma, as soon as I began this wonderful hobby, I discovered a name change. At birth, Grandma and her 4 siblings had the family name Sarracino, with 2 Rs. That spelling is on all 5 marriage records. After that, the family went by Saracino with 1 R. My 2 Sarracino great uncles produced 2 Saracino kids. The male is legally a Saracino with 1 R. So is his son and his son's wife and children.

I recorded Grandma's generation as Sarracino, but her brothers' descendants as Saracino.

Things get confusing when a name is changed, but I honor the at-birth legal name.

Things are trickier with a family that came from Italy. Their original surname was diPaola. In America, different parts of the family adopted different spellings. There's diPoalo, DePoalo, DePaul, DePaulo. It gets harder to see who's related and how.

While searching for my connection to a DNA match, I didn't know which spelling was hers. Her family tree gave me 1 married couple's names as help. But that worked, and I have placed her in my tree. She gets the same spelling variation as her father.

4. Unknown Names

I used to record "Unknown" wherever I had a missing first name or last name in my family tree. It surprised me when a cousin looked at a tree printout and said, "Oh, I'm sure they knew her name."

That left me open to suggestions for a better way to record someone with a missing name. Along came Ancestry's chief genealogist, Crista Cowan. She mentioned it in one of her "Barefoot Genealogist" lessons on YouTube. She uses a blank (_____), consisting of 5 underscore characters, to show that a name is missing.

A blank line is something anyone who's ever taken a test can understand.

I do all my work in Family Tree Maker. The people with _____ for a last name appear at the top of the alphabetical index. On Ancestry.com, they're at the end, after last names beginning with Z. The blanks show me I need to keep trying to find that missing name.

My family tree is all about origins and roots. (Isn't yours?) I cherish all the family names and all the given names. I pay homage to my roots by recording and displaying the original names. Their names are everything.

And speaking of names:

• This Genealogy Policy Takes the Guesswork Out of Names
• Same Name; Which Ancestor is Which?
• 5 Ways to Find Your Female Relative's Married or Maiden Name

How to Diagram a Mystery DNA Match

This is what I'll do when a DNA match is too abstract to make sense.

One of Mom's DNA matches is driving me crazy. Mary and Mom share 250 centiMorgans. That's a lot for someone I can't identify. Ancestry DNA says there's a 67% chance they are:

• 2nd cousins
• 1st cousins twice removed
• half 1st cousins once removed, or
• half 2nd great aunt/niece.

Mary learned from her DNA test that her father was not her biological father. A mutual DNA match led to the name of her father. I recognized the last name from my ancestors' hometown.

It looks like Mary's biological father's grandmother is my blood relative. Her name was Maria Grazia Sarracino. Sarracino is my maternal grandmother's maiden name. Everyone named Sarracino in their little hamlet in Italy is family. But the town has very limited vital records available.

I looked at Mary and Mom's shared matches. Two people have the last name of Mary's birth father, 1 has the name Saracino, and 1 has a Sarracino grandmother.

I decided to research Maria Grazia Sarracino—the grandmother of Mary's birth father. Her daughter was Angela Coviello—Mary's biological grandmother. She was born in 1895 to Angelo Coviello and Maria Grazia Sarracino. Angela's birth record does not say Maria Grazia Sarracino's age. I searched for more of her children, hoping for more details.

It was obvious Maria Grazia was Angelo's 2nd wife. They kept having babies until he was at least 62 years old. And there were no children born before 1893. Maria Grazia probably married Angelo in 1892. The last child I found was born in 1904. The 1905–1909 records are missing, but Angelo was getting quite old. None of their children's birth records include Maria Grazia's age or the name of her father.

Maria Grazia Sarracino was most likely born between 1860 and 1875. But without the records, I can't look for her marriage to Angelo Coviello. I can't look for her death. And I didn't find her birth.

Would a diagram of all Mary and Mom's possible relationships help solve this DNA mystery?

This turned out to be incredibly helpful. I started with my Relationship Calculator spreadsheet. (Download the file for free. Can't open an Excel file? Here's the Google Sheets version.) The calculator tells you your exact relationship to a cousin.

You can also use this relationship calculator to narrow down your connection to a DNA match. Here's how I did it:

• Duplicate the worksheet onto a new tab, leaving the original untouched.
• Highlight the cells that match your estimated relationship to your DNA match. (Note: The estimated relationships come from AncestryDNA. If you're not a subscriber, enter the shared amount of centiMorgans in this tool: https://dnapainter.com/tools/sharedcmv4.)
• I highlighted full relationships in yellow: 2nd cousin, and in 2 locations, 1st cousin 2 times removed.
• I highlighted half relationships in orange: 1st cousin, 1st cousin 1 time removed (in 2 locations), and 2nd Great Grand niece/nephew (in 2 locations).
• Delete or empty all the rows, columns, and cells you haven't highlighted.
• Add names to make things clearer. If Mom is the child of the common ancestor, then the common ancestor is Grandma. Put the appropriate name in each highlighted cell.
• Think through each relationship. You'll know that some are impossible, so you can cross them out.
• The remaining cells are your strongest possibilities.

This simple diagram showed me the most likely relationship between Mom and Mary.

I started with the easiest one: both locations of 2nd Great Grand niece/nephew. For one to be true, Mary would have to be the 3rd great grandchild of my grandmother. Mary's older than me, and a stranger, so that's impossible.

For the other to be true, Mary would have to be the child of my mother's 3rd great grandfather who died in the early 1800s. Also impossible. I crossed out both cells.

Next I looked at Mom's Grandchild column. These cells all have my great grandfather Giovanni's name in them. I know all Giovanni's children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. So I know Mary can't be his grandchild, great grandchild, or 2nd great grandchild. I crossed out all 3 cells.

Then I skipped a column and looked at Mom's 2nd great grandfather, Antonio. He couldn't be Mary's grandfather because he lived too long ago. I crossed out his cell.

That left 2 possible relationships for Mom's great grandfather, Giuseppe. Could Mary be his grandchild or great grandchild? For Mary to be Mom's full 2nd cousin, she'd have to be Giuseppe's great grandchild. I can't rule this out, so I'll leave the cell alone.

That leaves me with 1 more cell: half 1st cousin 1 time removed, with a common ancestor of Giuseppe Sarracino. But Giuseppe can't be Mary's grandfather because of the enormous age difference. I crossed out this cell.

I've eliminated all but the full 2nd cousin relationship. How would this relationship work? I took a look at my 2nd great grandfather, Giuseppe Sarracino. Giuseppe Sarracino married my 2nd great grandmother in December 1864. I can name 5 of their sons, born between 1865 and 1879. But I can't guarantee there were no other children.

Giuseppe had a habit of not reporting his childrens' births. By law, Italian citizens had to report births and deaths promptly.

But my great grandfather's 1876 birth went unreported until 1898. I found it completely by chance. They didn't report my 2nd great uncle Angelo's 1865 birth until 1894. And I've never found my 2nd great uncle Domenico's approximately 1866 birth record.

There's a gap from 1869–1875 during which Giuseppe could have had a daughter named Maria Grazia.

I wish I could add Maria Grazia Sarracino as a child of my 3rd great grandparents with a dotted line. I may never be able to prove she belongs there. But thanks to DNA probabilities, at least I have good reason to believe she is my 2nd great aunt.

I'm eager to try this method on more mystery DNA matches. I'll add a new spreadsheet tab for each person I want to put to the test. If figuring out potential relationships leaves your head spinning, give this a try.

And speaking of DNA:

• Let a DNA Match Guide Your Research for a While
• Help Your DNA Match Expand their Family Tree
• Is This the End of DNA Matches?

How to Tie Up Loose Ends in Your Family Tree

Here's how my combo of genealogy tools is tying up a long list of loose ends.

I'm ready to place almost every 19th century inhabitant of Grandpa's town into my family tree. Then it's on to each of my other ancestral hometowns.

Here's how I'm bringing all my obsessive processes together in one genealogical symphony.

Get yourself armed with knowledge and ready to find the documents you're missing.

Instrument 1: Vital Records

I've downloaded vast collections of Italian vital records from my ancestors' hometowns. They're arranged on my computer by province, then by town. For each town I have individual folders for:

• each year's birth records
• each year's death records, and
• each year's marriage records.

This simplifies searching.

Instrument 2: File Naming

It didn't take as long as you'd think to rename each image file, adding the subject's name. This is a birth record image containing 2 facing pages: 101577262_00006.jpg. I want to keep that number because it identifies the URL of the original file online. But I want to add the names of the 2 babies shown in the image. So I renamed the file 101577262_00006 Donato Petoscello & Maria Carmela Basile.jpg.

When the last name is important in my family, I include the subject's father's name. That helps me locate the right document faster. For example, 101577262_00020.jpg became 101577262_00020 Maria Teresa Pozzuto di Francesco & Giuseppantonio Zeolla di Giovanni.jpg. The "di" is Italian for "child of" and a handy shorthand.

Instrument 3: Document Tracker

As my family tree grew, I wanted an easy way to see which documents I had and didn't have for any given person. I made a document tracker spreadsheet. It's part of my process to record each document I find in the spreadsheet.

I labelled the last column "Need to find." That's where I keep list which documents I'm missing for each person in the list. It doesn't include everyone in my tree—only those with a document I found.

Instrument 4: Everything

This PC program is my new genealogy secret weapon. (Mac users may want to try NeoFinder.) It gives me Everything I need to locate any re-named document image on my computer.

Conducting the Orchestra

My process is this:

• Go through my document tracker, focusing on names from my grandfather's town.
• Find people who are missing a vital record: birth, marriage, or death.
• Search for the missing document with the Everything program.
• If found, add the document to the family tree and mark it as complete in the document tracker.
• If not found, mark it as "out of range" in the document tracker.

Here's an example:

Prepare for your search by gathering the necessary clues.

• Angelo Rosario Gregorio Basile was born in Colle Sannita on 1 Oct 1876. I have his birth record. He married twice. A clerk wrote the marriage dates and his wives' names on his birth record. Both marriage records (1896 and 1919) are out of the range of available records. It's his death record I want to find.
• Experience tells me his death record will not have his full name: Angelo Rosario Gregorio Basile. I need to know which name he used. I have the 1933 marriage record for his daughter. It says her father is Angelo Basile, and he's still alive. So I need a death record for an Angelo Basile who died in 1933 or later. (The death records in the collection end in 1942.)
• I use my new favorite program, Everything, to search for "Angelo Basile". I sort the results by the Path column so I can look only for a death record between 1933 and 1942.
• There are 3 choices. The first one is no good because his father is Donato. I'm looking for the son of Giovannantonio.
• The next death record, from 1940, is Angelo Basile, the son of Luigi. That's the wrong man.
• The final death record, from 1941, is Angelo Basile, the son of Giovanni (gasp!). His mother was Maria Franza. And his 2nd wife was Angelamaria Basile. This is, in fact, the death record I needed for Angelo Rosario Gregorio Basile.
• Now I can:
  
  • add the facts to my family tree
  • crop the image
  • annotate the image
  • add it to my tree, and
  • create a source citation
• Then I can update Angelo in my document tracker. His final note is "out of range: marriages" because they are not available. I hope they will be in the future. If this were his last missing document, I would put "n/a" in his "Need to find" column.

This victory inspires me to continue down the list. Combining (1) renamed vital record files, (2) the Everything program, and (3) my document tracker, I'll close the book on everyone from this town. Eventually.

If you aren't as obsessive about your entire ancestral town as I am, read on.

If you decide to use a document tracker, you'll know what you have and what you're missing for everyone in your family tree. In 2019 I searched for missing census records for all the Americans in my family tree. That focus helped me close the book on many families.

Go through your people alphabetically or by document type. Search for every missing census sheet or ship manifest or draft registration card. Take the time to do another search, and you'll have several successes.

I'm obsessed with my Italian towns, so I'm focusing on one town at a time. I will document all my towns, given enough time. And that, my friends, is my symphony of genealogy tools reaching its crescendo.

Add Value to Your Family Tree Documents

Prove to everyone that you've done your genealogy homework.

My husband gave me Family Tree Maker software and an Ancestry subscription as a birthday gift in 2002. It was a big step forward from scribbling my family history in notebooks.

Years later Ancestry.com introduced tree synchronization. It was great for people like me who worked on their desktop and wanted their online tree to show their progress.

Because I work in the desktop software, I never used my online family tree the way so many people do. I never accept hints, and I never add online documents to my online tree. That means you can't click a document in my online tree and go see the original for yourself.

I don't want my family tree to give the impression that I'm not doing quality genealogy research. So, when you visit my family tree on Ancestry.com, you'll see my document images offer a ton of information. I give each image (vital record, census sheet, ship manifest, etc.) detailed facts.

The images themselves offer everything you need to view the original and cite the source. If you've ever taken a close look at a potential cousin's tree, I'll bet you wished they gave you more proof.

Let's say you're looking on any genealogy website at someone's family tree. The tree includes a possible member of your family in the 1930 U.S. census, but you need proof. Is it your relative? You'd know for sure if he's your relative if you could read the street address. But it isn't on the page. Maybe it's on the next page.

That's why adding value to your documents is so important. I like to make sure anyone finding one of my documents can see:

• what the document is
• who the document shows
• when the event happened
• where the document came from
• how to cite the document
• how to view the original document

Vital Record Example

Carefully planned document annotations make your online tree highly valuable.

Most of the people in my family tree lived in Italy between the late 1600s and the early 1900s. I find their documents in an online collection of Italian vital records. My Italian vital records use a simple fact format. For example:

• Caption: 1876 birth record for Giovanni Sarracino, recorded in 1898—that tells you what the document is (an 1876 birth record) and who the document shows (Giovanni Sarracino)
• Date: 22 Oct 1876—that tells you when the event (the birth) happened
• Description: From the Benevento State Archives: http://dl.antenati.san.beniculturali.it/v/Archivio+di+Stato+di+Benevento/Stato+civile+italiano/SantAngelo+a+Cupolo/Nati/1898/8287/101687791_00079.jpg.html—that tells you where the document came from (the Benevento State Archives, also known as the Archivio di Stato di Benevento), how to cite the document, and how to view the original document (follow the link)

My more recent relatives have the typical U.S. documents:

• census records
• draft registration cards
• ship manifests, etc.

Each type of document has basic facts I add to the image.

Census Record Example

The image file's data carries over to Family Tree Maker. Additional facts carry over to Ancestry.com.

Here is the 1910 census for my great grandfather.

• Caption: 1910 census for Giovanni Sarracino and family, p1 (the family is spread across 2 pages)
• Date: 26 Apr 1910
• Categories: Census
• Description: This is where you'll find a lot of information. I try to follow a format:
  
  • lines 96-100 (where to look on the page for this family)
  • 1910 United States Federal Census (the title of the document collection)
  • New York / New York / Bronx Assembly District 33 / District 1514 (where to find this page in the larger collection)
  • supervisor's district 1, enumeration district 1514, sheet 26B (specific, identifying facts located on the page)
  • image 52 of 74 (the exact location of this page in the collection online)
  • https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/7884/4449901_00057?pid=18419163 (the URL of the image)
  • Source Citation: Year: 1910; Census Place: Bronx Assembly District 33, New York, New York; Roll: T624_1000; Page: 26B; Enumeration District: 1514; FHL microfilm: 1375013 (the source citation provided by the website where I found this document)
  • Source Information: Ancestry.com. 1910 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006 (more information provided by the website where I found this document)

Ship Manifest Example

Filling in all the details means someone finding your saved genealogy documents has hit paydirt.

Here's the 1898 ship manifest showing my great grandparents' arrival in America:

• Caption: 1899 immigration record for Giovanni Sarracino and Maria Rosa Saviano
• Date: 24 Jul 1899
• Categories: Immigration/Travel
• Description:
  
  • lines 6 and 7 (Maria Rosa was pregnant with Maria Carmina)
  • New York, Passenger Lists, Roll / T715, 1897-1957 / 0001-1000 / Roll 0075
  • image 719 of 1062
  • https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/7488/NYT715_75-0719
  • Source citation: Year: 1899; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Microfilm Roll: Roll 0075; Lines: 6-7; Page Number: 222

If you find one of my genealogy documents in an online search, I want you to have every last bit of information you need. You can take it as is, or go to the original location, and cite that source.

Yes, it's a lot of work. I have 6,647 media items in my family tree, and it grows nearly every day. But you've got to keep the long-game in mind. Your family tree is your legacy. You don't want your legacy to be half-baked, incomplete, or unsubstantiated.

My suggestion is to develop your format and stick to it going forward. Then, when you add a new document to someone in your family tree, revisit their previous documents. Give them a facelift while you're there. You'll be constantly polishing your genealogy work, making it better and better. Now that's a legacy.

And speaking of document images:

• 7 Steps to Perfect Family Tree Document Placement
• 10-Minute Genealogy Tasks You Can Do
• 3 Steps to My Ultimate, Priceless Family Tree

My Secret Weapon for Finding Relatives

Attention dead ends in my family tree: I'm coming after you with my new secret weapon. You cannot hide.

A few days ago I felt disappointed with my system for finding vital records. I've got Grandpa's hometown's vital records on my computer, downloaded from the Italian Antenati website. I spent a lot of time renaming each file to include the name of the person who was born, died, or got married on that date. That makes the files searchable with Window File Explorer.

I felt disappointed for a few reasons:

• Windows File Explorer can't do a restricted search. If I search for Pietro Iamarino (Grandpa), the results include files with both Pietro and Iamarino. They're not necessarily together. I can get too many useless results. Adding quotes, "Pietro Iamarino", doesn't help.
• When there are a lot of results, I can't tell them apart. I may be looking for a death record from the 1840s, but many of the results are birth and marriage records. I wish I could tell which is which without opening them all.
• The search term ("Pietro Iamarino") isn't highlighted in the results when I view them as a list.

I needed a better way to search my document collection.

Then I remembered a program called Everything. A couple of years ago, I wanted to search my computer for files to add to my weekly computer backup. I needed to know which files were new or updated since my last backup. Computer professionals recommended a program called Everything. In the end, I developed another system for my backups instead of using Everything. (NOTE: This is a PC-only program, as so many are. Maybe Finder already does what you need.)

Because I knew how I would have names these images, my secret weapon found the photos instantly.

Could I use Everything to search for names in my document collection? I went to the CNET website to download Everything again. My first test worked like a charm. My cousin has been texting me old family photos, and a couple of them looked familiar. I wondered, did she give me these already? There was a photo of my Uncle Al leaning on a car, and a pigeon coop on the rooftop of my mom's old building. I searched Everything for "SarracinoAlfredo" (that's how I would have named it). I found SarracinoAlfredoLeaningOnCar.jpg. That was it! I searched for "pigeon" and found "PigeonCoop260E151stStreetBronxNY." That was it, too!

Then came my Aha moment. Could Everything give me the search features that were missing from File Explorer? Yes, it could!

If I put an exact name in quotes, Everything gives me only that exact name, highlighted in bold. Better yet, I can see the full file path of each document. I can click the Path column to sort by the file location. Then I can pick out, say, the death records between 1815 and 1830. What a time saver!

This PC program solves the problem, giving me precise search results.

I'm still working hard on the family tree of my latest DNA match. I found that both her parents are my 6th cousins on my dad's side, and she is a DNA match to both my parents. I desperately want to find one of her ancestors with some connection to my mom's family.

Now I can focus on each dead-end branch in her tree. I can use Everything, my secret weapon, to find every document for a particular person. I've been looking at one family name, hoping it may lead to my mom. It's an uncommon name in the town. I can quickly generate a list of every document with that name and track them down.

I can search across all my genealogy documents and find exactly who I need.

There's no need to use quotation marks when searching for a single name. And sometimes I'm not sure the name on a death record will match the name on a birth record. If she's Maria Iamarino on her death record, she may be Maria Teresa Iamarino on her birth record. A search for "Maria Iamarino" (with quotes) won't show Maria Teresa Iamarino, but a search for Maria Iamarino (without quotes) will.

In a couple of days I used Everything to find tons of documents that were missing from my family tree. I'm breaking down brick walls left and right. I'm inspired to keep renaming the files from my other towns, not just Grandpa Iamarino's town.

I know you don't all have Italian ancestors. And you may not have huge collections of vital records available to you. But I'll bet you have photos and genealogy records scattered across your computer. Every time my mom asks me for a specific family photo, I struggle to find it. Now it's so much easier.

I've just scratched the surface with Everything. I'm sure there's much more it can do for me and you. Meanwhile, I've got so many loose ends I can tie up!